Shumka Centre is seeking two qualified design students for Research Assistant (RA) positions with the Shumka x Alaphia industry research project running from January to May 2026. RAs will work up to 15 hours per week for 20 weeks with some work/meetings being done in-person in Vancouver and some remotely.

This project is a collaboration with Alaphia, a Vancouver-based financial wellness company, exploring how serious game design, emotion-aware interfaces, and data visualization can reduce financial anxiety and foster healthy engagement in digital wellness tools. RAs will form an innovative design research team lead by ECU faculty Manuhuia Barcham and Nadia Beyzaei, collaborating directly with Alaphia’s technical and business leads to co-develop and conduct user testing on a next-generation financial wellness application designed to help users build healthier emotional and behavioural relationships with money.

This is an exciting opportunity to gain experience in applied design research, UX for wellbeing, and ethical gamification, contributing to a real-world project with impact in the growing wellness technology sector.

View the full call on The Leeway
Deadline to apply: 5PM PDT on November 26, 2025

Responsibilities

• Meet regularly with the Research team to establish project deliverables and working processes, and work collaboratively to solve creative and technical challenges;
• Meet regularly with the business and technical leads at Alaphia to ensure that the work aligns with creative and technical goals (both in-person and virtually);
• Work in phased sprints contributing to research, ideation, and prototyping activities as outlined in the project timeline;
• Engage in iterative design cycles, from low-fidelity sketches and wireframes to high-fidelity interactive prototypes;
• Integrate feedback from faculty and the industry partner through milestone critiques;
• Collaborate with the research team on user testing, engagement analysis, and accessibility validation;
• Contribute to the preparation of final documentation including a Design Research Report and showcase presentation to disseminate the research to the broader design and research partners and other project stakeholders.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the program, RAs should be able to:

• Apply serious game and gamification principles to the design of financial wellness tools;
• Conduct design research exploring emotion-centred, data-interactive user experiences;
• Prototype interactive flows, test usability, and synthesize feedback into refined design outputs;
• Translate concepts of empathy, accessibility, and inclusive design into actionable interface decisions;
• Practice collaborative problem-solving in the context of production workflows, optimization, and technical troubleshooting within a hybrid academic–industry research environment;
• Communicate research findings, creative rationale, and technical processes through both written documentation and visual presentation;
• Build confidence in navigating real-world design challenges through applied research and partnered collaboration;
• Engage with an external partner (Alaphia) as part of a creative ecosystem beyond the university;
• Reflect on the role of design in addressing complex behavioural and emotional challenges;
• Manage time efficiently and work effectively in teams or individually, as required.

Qualifications

Candidates must possess the following to be considered for this position:

• Be enrolled at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (MDes program, 3rd or 4th year INTD major) with a GPA of 3.0 or higher;
• Demonstrated technical and creative skills across web, UX and and/or communication design, and industry-standard tools such as Figma, Miro, and Adobe Creative Suite;
• Possess excellent teamwork skills and a flexible, creative attitude;
• Strong conceptual and visual storytelling skills;
• Experience with or interest in gamification, behavioural design, or data visualization;
• Understanding of or interest in inclusive and emotion-aware design practices;
• Excellent organizational, research, communication, and presentation skills;
• Ability to work independently and adapt responsively to changing conditions;
• Have use of your own laptop;
• Must be available to meet in-person and remotely with company teams and the internal research group as needed;
• Final project presentation will be held in May 2026.

Nice-to-Haves

• Hand-drawn illustration or motion design skills (for UI animation and visual storytelling)
• Basic creative coding or experience with prototyping tools (e.g., Framer, Principle, ProtoPie)
• Familiarity with privacy-first design and minimal data collection principles (e.g., GDPR, informed consent)

For information on compensation and how to apply, visit The Leeway.

Please note that this opportunity is funded through external sources (e.g., research grants and/or partner contributions). Hiring may be delayed, modified, or withdrawn in the event of changes to grant availability or partner commitments.